


Reality Check

by Saoirse Mooney (achuislemochroi)



Series: Narniafic [56]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Angst, M/M, POV Caspian X, Rating is for Themes, Reaction to Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-03 14:46:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12750444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achuislemochroi/pseuds/Saoirse%20Mooney
Summary: Caspian nearly lost Edmund, for ever.  And he’s not coping with it well.





	1. Vigil

**Author's Note:**

> Filmverse, although the encounter with the Sea Serpent is in its bookverse setting. This happens in the same timeline as, and is a direct sequel to, _Light & Shadow_. Thanks go to [](https://glory-jean.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](https://glory-jean.dreamwidth.org/)**glory_jean** for the beta; all remaining mistakes are my own.

It takes time, and a lot of it, before Ed wakes. A day? More? After a few hours you find everything seems to blur together, so you’ll never know exactly how long it takes. The one clear memory you retain is how, for the duration of it, you spend most of your time ignoring everything that isn’t Ed. You’re terrified to take your eyes off his tiny figure in that bed even for a moment, in case you lose him. He’s too pale, looks too young, and came far too close to death for your liking. Lucy swears blind he is only sleeping, but the sight of Ed lying so still makes you want to weep at the unfairness of it.

Nothing is more important to you now than sitting vigil for Ed. Yours (or Lucy’s, at a push, but not Eustace’s under any circumstances) is the first face you want him to see when he wakes. Someone familiar. Someone _safe_.

You talk to him, your voice quiet, while you sit there waiting for him to come back to you. Lucy had mentioned having heard of times when the unconscious could hear others even when that seemed impossible. And if something as simple as keeping up a one-sided conversation with Ed will make the difference, will bring him back to you, then you’ll do it.

You have no reason to distrust Lucy, who is adamant Ed is ‘only sleeping’. But you’ve never had cause before now to see the Cordial’s healing ability with your own eyes and thus have no reason to trust it, not entirely. And you’re even less willing to trust it when the person involved is someone who means as much to you as Ed. And that mistrust isn’t just because of how every one of your senses, since Lucy used it on her brother, tells you that Ed still hovers between life and death.

The desperate worry for Ed has you by the throat, making it almost impossible to take a deep breath, and he is never far from your mind. Not being able to do more than hold his hand, rather than touch and hold him as you would prefer, is unbearable. But the duties of kingship never end, and Drinian is your first visitor. It takes several hours before he comes anywhere near you. After you sent him post-haste for Lucy and the Cordial, it’s obvious even to him where your current priorities lie. But his arrival is almost inevitable. You hear him out. The part of you still capable of rational thinking about this situation knows it’s unrealistic not to think he’d need you for _something_. But with at least half your attention still focussed on Ed, you can’t remember afterwards what the issue was even about.

Drinian makes the mistake of asking follow up questions. Under almost any other circumstances you’d be grateful for his thoroughness, but not now. You snap at him, telling him to decide as he sees fit and to _leave you alone_ because you have other priorities at present. Something makes you think he won’t come back in a hurry.

And Ed sleeps on through it all. You don’t let yourself dwell on how terrifying it is that nothing seems to wake him, because you can’t bear to think about where the logical ending of that thought process takes you.

Lucy comes in every so often, to check on her brother, and she brings food with her. Worry has destroyed your appetite; food, and even the idea of eating, repulses you. Every time Lucy brings more, you push food around your plate to make it look as if you’ve eaten some of it. You doubt she’s fooled for a moment.

It soon becomes clear someone (either Drinian or Lucy – and you’d wager it’s the latter) is keeping people away from you. Especially as, after Drinian’s visit, Lucy is the only person you see. And you know she is at least as worried about her brother as you are. Yet when she makes a half-serious comment in passing about force-feeding you, it’s all you can do to stop yourself from snapping at her, too.

When she collects yet another plate full of food it’s clear you haven’t touched, she can no longer stay quiet.

‘I _know_ you’re worried about him,’ she says, her voice full of frustrated affection. ‘I am, too! But he’ll need you when he wakes up, Caspian, and starving yourself while you’re waiting for him to do it won’t help!’

You can see her point, and you know she is saying it out of love. But the idea of eating anything still makes you feel nauseous. And it doesn’t matter how comfortable you feel around Lucy. Her words make you feel guilty for taking up her time when all your focus and attention should be on Ed.

The guilt for it, for everything, presses down on you and threatens to swallow you whole. Were it not for the fact Ed needs you, you’d consider letting it. But you know you cannot be so selfish.


	2. Joy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ed wakes.

You’ve spent days here, watching over an unconscious Ed and waiting for time to finish the work Lucy’s Cordial began. Your reality, or what passes for it out here on the open sea miles from anywhere, has narrowed for you to the walls of this cabin and the man in the bed.

Since Drinian’s unsuccessful attempt to pull you away from your vigil over Ed, no-one else has tried. The chain of command on this ship began with you before all this happened. But you suspect, when the idle thought crosses your mind as you sit here, Drinian now takes his orders from Queen Lucy. Something that on someone else might have been a smile flickers across your face at the idea.

The lamps are lit in here, but you’ve become so focussed on Ed that your sense of time and place has suffered for it. You’ve no idea whether it is dawn or dusk outside, and care even less. Time has ceased to have much meaning for you. You sleep little because you worry Ed might slip away from you to Aslan’s Country while you do. This fear does not stop you from dozing, though, and your grip on Ed’s fingers loosens a little as you drift off. You are almost asleep when you feel movement against your fingers.

You are awake in an instant.

You have wanted this to happen so much you wonder if it’s possible you might have imagined it. In case you didn’t, you give Ed’s hand a gentle squeeze anyway. And there it is again, the faintest of squeezes in return, and you dare to hope. Your history and character have never permitted you the luxury of Lucy’s endless positivity. You’d almost believed Ed would never wake. If things are what they appear to be here you doubt you will ever again be so happy to be wrong.

There is more, albeit slow, movement from the bed. Your heart is full of hope and it beats faster in your chest, something you notice in passing as much of your attention is focussed on Ed.

‘Come back to me, love. I miss you so much.’

You want to ask him to open his eyes and look at you, but refrain. Wouldn’t he be doing that if he were able? And indeed there’s movement behind Ed’s eyelids and they are fluttering. After all this time it seems he’s coming back to you. You move to sit on the bed beside him, wanting to be closer. The chair you’ve been sitting in for days is no longer close enough.

And then his eyes are open, and he is looking at and recognising you, Aslan be praised. And your heart’s so full of joy it’ll burst if you try to speak. Instead, you caress his face with your fingers and smile up at him.

‘Cas…’

His voice is a little rusty from disuse (how many days _has_ it been?), but you think it’s still the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.

If it hadn’t been for Lucy’s Cordial… You squash the thought before it has the chance to take root. Why think about the what-ifs, when Ed’s now awake and needs all your focus and attention? Instead, you pull your joined hands up to your lips and brush a kiss across his knuckles, keeping eye contact with him the whole time. You see what look like tears in his eyes. This prompts you to turn his hand in yours so you can drop an open-mouthed kiss on the palm, and you watch Ed’s eyes close for a moment at the feel of it. The tears escape and roll down his cheeks, and you use the pads of your thumbs to wipe them away. Then, because you can hold back no longer, you lean forward enough to lay gentle kisses where your thumbs have been. Aslan, you love this man.

’Me… too…’

And you can’t help but grin down at Ed as you realise you must have spoken that last part out loud.

‘Always, Ed,’ you say. He needs to hear it and you need to say it. And if your voice wobbles, choked with the strength of your emotions, you neither notice nor care.

Ed is alive and awake. And, for now, nothing else matters.


	3. Reckoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘You almost _died_ , Ed.’ Your voice cracks from the strength of the emotion you’re feeling. ‘Don’t you understand that? You almost died! I almost _lost_ you!’

You’re able to begin the process of transition back to something approaching normality, as time passes and he recovers, but you find the strong need to spend as much time with him as possible never quite disappears And, for days after his waking, Ed still looks so very young and ill in that bed you want to weep.

But you have conflicting emotions in play. You’re pleased beyond measure to see him still alive but, at the same time, angry he’d been foolish enough to get himself into a position like that in the first place.

‘Birds and beasts, how could you have been so _stupid_?’

Your mouth always has worked ahead of your brain and the furious outburst is out before you can think to stop it. Almost before you realise it, you’re holding so tight to his arms you’re sure it’ll bruise. But right now, you’re too angry to care.

‘I couldn’t move. I tried, but I couldn’t make m—’

He’s cut off when you move his hands to pull him into you and then bring your lips down hard on his. You pour everything – fear, anger, love – into a hard, and desperate, kiss.

_I nearly lost you. I can’t believe how close I came to never seeing you again._

He struggles against you for a moment, which considering what you’ve just said to him isn’t much of a surprise. But he doesn’t pull away either, which is encouraging, and you bring both your arms around him to pull him in to you as close as possible as you deepen the kiss. You’ve missed being able to do this almost as much as you’ve missed the man you’re doing it with.

Ed makes an incoherent sound in the back of his throat; you grin into the kiss, thrilled beyond measure that you can still coax this reaction out of him. He makes you feel alive in so many different ways, letting your senses drown in him completely, in an essence that’s ineffably _Ed_. You’ve been without him too long. So you break the kiss with great reluctance, and you watch him try to catch his breath before you speak again.

‘I can’t lose you, Ed, I _can’t_.’

The elephant in the room, the fact Ed is only ever a visitor to Narnia at the mercy of the Lion’s whim, isn’t mentioned.

‘I’m not going anywhere, Caspian. Except maybe back out on deck as soon as I’m better.’ Your response to this is immediate.

‘No.’ Your tone is dull, flat. Immovable.

‘ _What_?’

You might have guessed getting him to agree would not be easy. And with the way you’ve just come out with it, a blank wall without even telling him why... that’s just going to make it more difficult. By the looks of Ed, he’s having a hard time controlling his temper.

‘Cas—’

You know the two of you need to discuss this. But right now you can’t get a proper handle on how you’re feeling, let alone articulate it. And so it comes out wrong.

‘I said _no_!’

You almost scream this at him, all the stress over the past days spent waiting for him to wake up, not knowing for certain he would, breaking over you like a cresting wave. And then you catch sight of the thunderous expression on Ed’s face.

You start trying to explain. But Ed’s temper has always been more volatile than yours, and he’s too angry to listen.

‘ _No_! I won’t let you just make decisions like that for me. You know, I thought you and I could finally — well, it looks like I got _that_ wrong!’

It’s only then that you see the pain in his expression, and a hint of something that might be fear. And the last thing you want is for Ed ever to feel frightened of you.

He starts to move away from you, going as far as pulling the bedcovers off himself and trying to get out of bed, and you feel a wave of fear hit you. You act on instinct to stop him moving, to prevent him getting out of bed when he’s still not fully well. It’s only when you hear him cry out in pain that you realise your grip on him is so tight your fingernails are digging into his skin. You bring his arm up towards your lips; before Ed can react, you’re kissing the afflicted skin better with both lips and tongue. You wonder if his reaction to that will mean he’ll stop shouting long enough for you to try to explain. Judging by the evidence (a dazed expression on his face, and his slightly-parted lips), it’s working.

_No, no, that’s not right._

You feel sick; when did you become so manipulative? So much like your despised uncle? You let go of him altogether and wrench yourself away from him.

‘Caspian?’ Most of the anger in Ed’s voice is gone; his tone is tentative, not wanting to upset you any further, and something in that breaks you. You can’t stop the tears from running down your face as you turn back towards him.

‘You almost _died_ , Ed.’ Your voice cracks from the strength of the emotion you’re feeling. ‘Don’t you understand that? You almost died! I almost _lost_ you!’

You suck in a breath, and try not to think of how much even the idea of losing him hurts because it was bad enough when he left you last time. This time, you suspect, it would be bad beyond imagining. You concentrate, instead, on trying to control the tears falling from your eyes.

Ed’s response is immediate. He rests his fingers on your arm, his touch hesitant and gentle, as if you were a fragile and easy-broken thing. Your breath hitching, you close your eyes and lean in to his touch, unable to speak for fear of breaking down completely.

You feel the tears continue to come anyway. And then Ed is there, cradling your head with his hands before leaning in to kiss the tears away, murmuring your name over and over under your breath as he does.

‘ _Caspian_ …’

His tone as he breathes your name leaves you in no doubt that, angry with you or no, the depth and strength of his feelings for you remain unchanged. You open your eyes again to see him looking at you, his expression soft and tender and absolutely _full_ of everything he cannot say. You smile a tiny little smile at him and watch as the creases of worry around his eyes ease a little.

You have a long way to go before things can be back to normal. But perhaps this will be all right, in the end, after all.


End file.
